


Nothing Human Lasts

by Triskaidekalogue



Series: HSO 2011 ficbits [1]
Category: Homestuck, Little Mermaid (1989)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/F, F/M, Ficbit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-11
Updated: 2011-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-24 12:51:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triskaidekalogue/pseuds/Triskaidekalogue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unrequited love is one thing, but she won't suffer a worthless cipher like him to steal her princess away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Human Lasts

**Author's Note:**

> A _Little Mermaid_ AU snippet written for HSO Bonus Round 1B.

The sea witch has a hundred little scrying-windows hidden in her cave, pearls and shells and shipwreck medallions with the rust scrubbed off. The latter don't last long before they're scrubbed right to nothingness by salt and magic; nothing human lasts. She fishes one out now, a jagged shard of shell thrust in the sand. It matches her mood.

At first there is no image. The mother-of-pearl that coats the shell is too cloudy to even reflect her own face, her sharp chin and purple eyes. But in a moment the pearliness clears away to reveal a tiny, perfect scene: The princess smiling dreamily at her human, inches away from kissing --

She hurls the shard away. It sticks in the sand somewhere again, she doesn't know where, no longer a window.

 _Why him_ , she wants to shout. Foolish, infatuated, sweet and hopeful girl -- _He will never understand you, he will have no patience for your strange and lovely dreams!_ Fingering the nautilus dangling from her neck, the sea witch wonders bitterly if she should not have disguised her princess's voice instead. She had thought to put off the human as well as confuse him by taking the voice; after all, from the fragments she'd scried of the overland world, it had seemed singularly hostile to those who lacked common abilities like sight or speech. But perhaps if he'd heard those dark, delicate fantasies that the princess so loved to weave -- the selfsame fantasies which had caught _her_ heart -- he would have rejected her much sooner.

The sea witch's tentacles roil about her, restless. It is already too late to change that decision, but the future is still hers to sway; a stray wisp of laughter spills from the nautilus, and her decision is made. She will wear the princess's voice, then, and show her exactly how fickle and temporary human love is. (Nothing human lasts.)


End file.
